I'm 100% with you. I think he gets the edge over 85 because NB played for New England for a while. Madison and Surtain were not here for long enough to be considered Ring of Honor caliber guys, IMO, and JT is a Jet....All that said, Thomas is the greatest Dolphin ever.

Sorry, if you are rating the best Dolphins of all time, there's a bunch of guys ahead of Zach. Don't get me wrong; I loved the way he played the game but here's a list that you could make a good argument of players ahead of Zach;

Sorry, if you are rating the best Dolphins of all time, there's a bunch of guys ahead of Zach. Don't get me wrong; I loved the way he played the game but here's a list that you could make a good argument of players ahead of Zach;

DanGrieseCsonkaBuonicontiClaytonLangerLittleWebbScottMadisonJT

It's hard to compare Csonka to Zach, or Griese to him, so I'll just go with the defensive guys you named. Buoniconti - Great player, obviously. In the HOF. However, he played for the Patriots and had the best supporting cast possible in Miami.Scott - Great safety. Most under rated Dolphin of all time. That's a tough call. He came through in the clutch as well.Madison - If you are going to put Madison on this list, you mine as well put Surtain too. In any case, I don't think he played in Miami long enough to compare him to ZT.JT - He's a Jet.

To me, I think the top contenders are Buoniconti (although, again, he played in NE for a lot of years), Scott and Manny Fernandez. Maybe it's impulse because he just retired, but I think Thomas has to top the list of all time Dolphin defenders. Just me though.

Well, first, you're right; it's hard to compare offensive players to Zach, but... you opened the door by mentioning Marino. : ) As for the rest, I include Madison and not Surtain because he played 2 more years for the Phins. JT is a JeT, you are right, but that doesn't remove his stats from the Dolphins history (though some would wish it would).

Here's the question... is Zach a sure-thing HOFer? I don't think so. How can you put him ahead of NB or Scott, or even Fernandez?

I'm not hating on Zach. I loved watching him play. I'm just trying to keep some perspective.

Yeah, and like I said a lot of our emotions right now are running on impulse because of what has happened in the past week.

Scott and Fernandez are not in the HOF though. That has always baffled me. I agree that unfortunately Zach is not a sure fire HOFer, but I do believe he will get in at some point. IMO, he should be first ballot, but I'm a homer, so. Lol.

As for JT, I would put him and Zach Thomas in the same exact class. Production or otherwise. But with JT now dawning Satan's color, and with Zach saying the things he has been saying, I don't think it's a comparison anymore.

But again, this is all impulse. I know that right now I could not care less that Damon left Boston for the Yankees. At the time though, I was fuming about it.

You can throw out all the names that you want but Zach Thomas is the only one recent enough for me to have actually seen him play, that wins it for me. Besides Dan Marino of course. And as they say; JT is a jet now.